French Pronunciation: Intonation

Intonation patterns of French speech

This tutorial presents an overview of the rules of European/metropolitan French pronunciation,
focusing on the vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation patterns that
are different from American English. For more practice with comprehension
and pronunciation, please check the listening and repetition exercises.

For more French learning through authentic videos, I recommend Yabla French and FluentU. For audiobooks and lessons of modern French, try French Today. I've recommended some French books at Amazon, and Interlinear books are great for learning French by reading literal translations in English. French Listening and Authentic French provide audio and video clips of real, spoken French in various accents with transcripts so you can listen and read along, plus some exercises to test your comprehension. Need even more French? Try the French courses at Udemy or consider purchasing French Language Tutorial as an e-book to support ielanguages.com.

Buy French Language Tutorial as an e-book! French Language Tutorial includes more than 200 pages of grammar and vocabulary topics, sample sentences, informal ways of speaking, cultural information about France, and an overview of French pronunciation. This e-book also comes with 200+ mp3s (more than FIVE HOURS) recorded by three native speakers and FREE lifetime updates. Download the first 10 pages of French Language Tutorial (including the table of contents). NEW! The companion e-book, Informal and Spoken French, is also now available! Buy the two French e-books together at a discounted price!

French Intonation

Intonation in French is slightly different from English. In general, the
intonation rises only for a yes/no question, and the rest
of the time, the intonation falls. French intonation starts at a
higher pitch and falls continuously throughout the sentence, whereas in English,
the stressed syllable has a higher pitch that what precedes and follows
it.

Listen to these sentences in English and French and see if you can hear
the difference in intonation. Bold marks the higher pitch. Notice that
even if the intonation pattern seems similar, the syllables with higher pitches
are often in different locations. The
numbers below refer to the pitch: 1) low, 2) medium, 3) high, 4) extra high.